Orion awoke with a jolt, kicking the footboard rail of the bed he lay on. Upon calming and realising what he had just seen was a nightmare, he sighed and settled back into his blanket, its rough fabric scratching against his skin. Bleary light shone through a window, brightening the room. It was decorated plainly with at least a few years since its last lick of paint.

Kora lay beside him, her caramel-brown hair splayed across the mattress. When he eventually stirred, he didn’t wake her and instead slipped out to the kitchen to put together breakfast. Minutes later, when she came over, he finished up and ate in relative quiet.

“How was your night today then?” she asked.

“Same old, same old,” he grumbled between a bite.

“Really? I didn’t hear anything!”

“You slept like a log; of course you heard nothing,”

She giggled while his lips curled and his eyes gleamed.

It had been four months since the Seeker’s Summit, and they were now in Yupker, a city a month or so east of the Zakari House’s ruins. Their journey to the west had been relatively calm: they had been ambushed by bandits more than once, but these fights had been alike ants against giants, the outcome always soul-crushingly obvious.

While the frontlines of the war had begun at the far end of the Zakari’s former domain, the Tribes had edged into the Empire bit by bit. There was even a popular rumour in the city that Eira had willingly given away the land, the given reason being she had wanted to create a wide buffer between the Tribes and the Empire. Regardless of the validity of the rumour, this was exactly what she had done as she had ordered her soldiers to poison the wells and salt the ground when retreating.

This meant two things: one, the Tribes wouldn’t be able to set up any sustainable camps in the territory they captured, which meant for every metre they captured, they would need to transport their resources a metre more. While this seemed a self-evident point, it was also awfully effective as the Tribes’ invasion had lost vigour after several hundred kilometres into the Empire as it got harder and harder for the baggage trains to arrive on time, and sometimes even arrive at all. Second: Eira had no plans of repurposing the Zakari lands into the Empire, after all, even if they did retake the ground they had lost, no man nor beast would be able to survive on poisoned land.

Either way, this had resulted in Yupker, a city nestled deep in the Empire, becoming right next to the frontlines. Moreover, the dung pile of a war had attracted thousands of flies to the city, the sort that leeched off the local populace while also sustaining the war effort. These went from prostitutes to scavengers to scholars to beggars to medical men, all gathered at the frontlines for one reason or another.

When Orion, Joiroa, and Kora had arrived at Yupker, things had taken another turn for the worse. Despite Joiroa’s claim that it would take Shrien and his gang a year to make the portal, Shrien had instead decided to one-up that estimate and do it in less than half the time. Following this, waves of foreigners had entered the Empire, eager to pillage and plunder.

The House of Piros had reacted quick, immediately rebasing their family from the capital, Petrosa, to the east, taking to the frontlines there. Due to this, the Cruorems had also been forced into the mess, half of them ordered to go south and stop the Horsemen while the other half ordered to fight against the Tribes in the west.

While these were all grand and daunting events, none of them had particularly personally affected Orion. Joiroa had left for the east ever since entering Yupker and hearing the news, and while Orion had argued for the man to stay, he had also instinctively known he had too much on his mind to truly care about Joiroa. Maybe in the future once he dealt with Eira and Yhaoli, but not now, not while his blood still roared for revenge.

As Orion mused over the events that had happened, so did Kora, only focusing on a different matter altogether. Over the course of the journey, in fact ever since Kasib had named Eira to be the murderer, Orion’s core values had changed. He had grown power-hungry and the rate he had gained power over the trip frightened Kora. Well, not so much his power leaps as much as his mentality; she had always known him to be chasing after the Zakari’s executioner but now that he was so close, he seemed addicted to the sweetness of revenge.

A series of knocks sounded on their door as they finished up. “Hello? Orion? Bian?” a muffled voice called.

Opening, Orion saw Kasib, quickly leading him in. The bald Seeker now looked haggard and his clothes were dirty and torn.

Kasib heavily breathed out while resting on a chair. “How long have you been here?”

“A month or so. We’ve just been gaining a better picture of the area and its happenings,” Kora said.

“And you didn’t run into it? Yhaoli?” Kasib said, calming a little.

“What?”

“It was a trick, another diversion. It’s here in the west, hiding somewhere here. I hurried as fast as I could but it seems no one has an exact clue of its location,” Kasib said. “But worst is what I just heard,” he continued, “They say it’s joined forces with the Tribes,”

A tense silence washed over the trio.

“With the Tribes? I thought they hated monsters, looked down on them like animals?” Kora asked.

“No, they do. But the three biggest tribes, the Cuthla, Zyn, and Sole, the ones driving this invasion are showing suspicions signs. Jowler says the large meetings they’re having and the sudden peace right now are temporary,” Kasib explained.

“Mm, that makes sense,” Orion said, “Eira has around 5 thousand troops here, you know, Kasib? But in the city, all signs are pointing towards her other forces across the frontlines taking the risk to leave their defences and charge here,” he said while glancing at Kora.

She nodded. “Yeah, there’s been a lot more baggage trains moving to the war camps in the last week. We thought she was planning an ambitious attack, but if Yhaoli has teamed up with the Tribes, it sounds more like a—”

“Risky defence. A desperate one,” Kasib ended.

“Mm, I’ve heard all the Metoles have come here now, and maybe it’s true now,” Orion said.

The other two nodded.

Following this, the tense silence between them returned. It was only seconds later Orion realised he was getting tense over nothing. Sure, if Yhaoli really had teamed up with the Tribes, then it meant all hell was about to break loose, including the possibility of the Imperial army being decimated. Still, this gave him the chance he had been waiting for the entire month: the opportunity to kill Eira.

“Let’s go to the markets, buy as many supplies, then leave for the warcamps. Yeah?” he said.

Kasib stared at the younger Seeker, considering the possibilities of what could happen, before nodding with a heavy heart. He guessed this was it.